RFC3271 - The Internet is for Everyone

Network Working Group V. Cerf

Request for Comments: 3271 Internet Society

Category: Informational April 2002

The Internet is for Everyone

Status of this Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does

not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this

memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This document eXPresses the Internet Society's ideology that the

Internet really is for everyone. However, it will only be sUCh if

we make it so.

1. The Internet is for everyone

How easy to say - how hard to achieve!

How have we progressed towards this noble goal?

The Internet is in its 14th year of annual doubling since 1988.

There are over 150 million hosts on the Internet and an estimated 513

million users, world wide.

By 2006, the global Internet is likely to exceed the size of the

global telephone network, if it has not already become the telephone

network by virtue of IP telephony. Moreover, as many as 1.5 billion

Internet-enabled appliances will have joined traditional servers,

desk tops and laptops as part of the Internet family. Pagers, cell

phones and personal digital assistants may well have merged to become

the new telecommunications tools of the next decade. But even at the

scale of the telephone system, it is sobering to realize that only

half of the Earth's population has ever made a telephone call.

It is estimated that commerce on the network will reach somewhere

between $1.8T and $3.2T by 2003. That is only two years from now

(but a long career in Internet years).

The number of Internet users will likely reach over 1000 million by

the end of the year 2005, but that is only about 16% of the world's

population. By 2047 the world's population may reach about 11

billion. If only 25% of the then world's population is on the

Internet, that will be nearly 3 billion users.

As high bandwidth Access becomes the norm through digital subscriber

loops, cable modems and digital terrestrial and satellite radio

links, the convergence of media available on the Internet will become

obvious. Television, radio, telephony and the traditional print

media will find counterparts on the Internet - and will be changed in

profound ways by the presence of software that transforms the one-way

media into interactive resources, shareable by many.

The Internet is proving to be one of the most powerful amplifiers of

speech ever invented. It offers a global megaphone for voices that

might otherwise be heard only feebly, if at all. It invites and

facilitates multiple points of view and dialog in ways

unimplementable by the traditional, one-way, mass media.

The Internet can facilitate democratic practices in unexpected ways.

Did you know that proxy voting for stock shareholders is now commonly

supported on the Internet? Perhaps we can find additional ways in

which to simplify and expand the voting franchise in other domains,

including the political, as access to Internet increases.

The Internet is becoming the repository of all we have accomplished

as a society. It has become a kind of disorganized "Boswell" of the

human spirit. Be thoughtful in what you commit to email, news

groups, and other Internet communication channels - it may well turn

up in a web search some day. Thanks to online access to common

repositories, shared databases on the Internet are acting to

accelerate the pace of research progress.

The Internet is moving off the planet! Already, interplanetary

Internet is part of the NASA Mars mission program now underway at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory. By 2008 we should have a well-functioning

Earth-Mars network that serves as a nascent backbone of an inter-

planetary system of Internets - InterPlaNet is a network of

Internets! Ultimately, we will have interplanetary Internet relays

in polar solar orbit so that they can see most of the planets and

their associated interplanetary gateways for most, if not all of the

time.

The Internet Society is launching a new campaign to facilitate access

to and use of Internet everywhere. The campaign slogan is "Internet

is for everyone," but there is much work needed to accomplish this

objective.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if it isn't affordable by

all that wish to partake of its services, so we must dedicate

ourselves to making the Internet as affordable as other

infrastructures so critical to our well-being. While we follow

Moore's Law to reduce the cost of Internet-enabling equipment, let us

also seek to stimulate regulatory policies that take advantage of the

power of competition to reduce costs.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if Governments restrict

access to it, so we must dedicate ourselves to keeping the network

unrestricted, unfettered and unregulated. We must have the freedom

to speak and the freedom to hear.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if it cannot keep up with

the explosive demand for its services, so we must dedicate ourselves

to continuing its technological evolution and development of the

technical standards the lie at the heart of the Internet revolution.

Let us dedicate ourselves to the support of the Internet Architecture

Board, the Internet Engineering Steering Group, the Internet Research

Task Force, the Internet Engineering Task Force and other

organizations dedicated to developing Internet technology as they

drive us forward into an unbounded future. Let us also commit

ourselves to support the work of the Internet Corporation for

Assigned Names and Numbers - a key function for the Internet's

operation.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be until in every home, in

every business, in every school, in every library, in every hospital

in every town and in every country on the Globe, the Internet can be

accessed without limitation, at any time and in every language.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if it is too complex to be

used easily by everyone. Let us dedicate ourselves to the task of

simplifying the Internet's interfaces and to educating all that are

interested in its use.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if legislation around the

world creates a thicket of incompatible laws that hinder the growth

of electronic commerce, stymie the protection of intellectual

property, and stifle freedom of expression and the development of

market economies. Let us dedicate ourselves to the creation of a

global legal framework in which laws work across national boundaries

to reinforce the upward spiral of value that the Internet is capable

of creating.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if its users cannot

protect their privacy and the confidentiality of transactions

conducted on the network. Let us dedicate ourselves to the

proposition that cryptographic technology sufficient to protect

privacy from unauthorized disclosure should be freely available,

applicable and exportable. Moreover, as authenticity lies at the

heart of trust in networked environments, let us dedicate ourselves

to work towards the development of authentication methods and systems

capable of supporting electronic commerce through the Internet.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if parents and teachers

cannot voluntarily create protected spaces for our young people for

whom the full range of Internet content still may be inappropriate.

Let us dedicate ourselves to the development of technologies and

practices that offer this protective flexibility to those who accept

responsibility for providing it.

Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if we are not responsible

in its use and mindful of the rights of others who share its wealth.

Let us dedicate ourselves to the responsible use of this new medium

and to the proposition that with the freedoms the Internet enables

comes a commensurate responsibility to use these powerful enablers

with care and consideration. For those who choose to abuse these

privileges, let us dedicate ourselves to developing the necessary

tools to combat the abuse and punish the abuser.

Internet is for everyone - even Martians!

I hope Internauts everywhere will join with the Internet Society and

like-minded organizations to achieve this, easily stated but hard to

attain goal. As we pass the milestone of the beginning of the third

millennium, what better theme could we possibly ask for than making

the Internet the medium of this new millennium?

Internet IS for everyone - but it won't be unless WE make it so.

2. Security Considerations

This document does not treat security matters, except for reference

to the utility of cryptographic techniques to protect confidentiality

and privacy.

3. References

[1] Internet Society - www.isoc.org

[2] Internet Engineering Task Force - www.ietf.org

[3] Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -

www.ICANN.org

[4] Cerf's slides: www.wcom.com/cerfsup

[5] Interplanetary Internet - www.ipnsig.org

[6] Internet history - livinginternet.com

4. Author's Addresses

Vint Cerf

former Chairman and President, Internet Society

January 2002

Sr. Vice President, Internet Architecture and Technology

WorldCom

22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115

Ashburn, VA 20147

EMail: vinton.g.cerf@wcom.com

5. Full Copyright Statement

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to

others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it

or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published

and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any

kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are

included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this

document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing

the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other

Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of

developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for

copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be

followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than

English.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be

revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an

"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING

TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING

BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION

HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Acknowledgement

Funding for the RFCEditor function is currently provided by the

Internet Society.